Rice sheath blight caused by Rhizoctonia solani Kühn is one of the most important diseases on cultivated rice worldwide.Unlike most other fungal pathogens,R.solani forms heterokaryotic vegetative mycelia with multiple nuclei per hyphal cell and is unable to produce haploid asexual spores under normal conditions.These characteristics of R.solani may make it difficult to perform genetic transformation and functional analysis of genes.Production of large amount of protoplasts from this fungus is a prerequisite...